My husband and I had been together 11
years when we decided to get serious
about having kids. We knew we had
fertility problem, and began seeking
treatments. We did treatments for over
a year and became pregnant with our
1st ivf in Sept 2006. We were so
happy.
My pregnancy had been uneventful, no
morning sickness or anything else. At
21w 3d, I was at a family party, got
up to get something to eat and felt a
gush. I was in immediate denial. I
went to the bathroom and seen that my
pants were soaked with clear fluid.
It had no smell. I knew it was not
urine. I called my ob, it was the
weekend, so I had to wait for the on-
call doctor to call me back. She
advised to go to the ob triage at the
hospital to be evaluated.
I had to drive 45 mins to get home to
get my husband and we went straight to
the hospital. I am a nurse and knew
that this was not good. I was scared
to death.
I was taken to an exam room, the
nurses and docs tried to calm us and
say that it is probably nothing, just
urine leakage. I was hoping, but I
knew deep down that my membranes had
ruptured.
The did a vaginal exam and seen
pooling of fluid and did a nitrazine
test and it was positive for amniotic
fluid. They then did an ultrasound,
and seen that my fluid level was very
low, 1.5cm.
We were advised by the doctors that I
would be admitted and given IV
antibiotics and monitored. They said
the prognosis was very grim, most
pprom's will start labor within 48
hours and the risk for infection was
extremly high. Most likely my baby
would have to be delivered soon and
since I was not 24 weeks yet, the baby
would not survive. If we did make it
past 24 weeks, the point of viability,
It would be a 50/50 shot that the
baby's lungs would be developed enough
to sustain life.
Well, I stayed in the hospital and
labor never started, I never developed
an infection. I received steroid at
24weeks. They monitored the baby
everyday and did weekly ultra sound to
monitor the fluid. I did start to
rebuild my fluid, and at one point,
the level was over 4cms, but on
average it was between 2cms and 3cms
until 27 weeks. At that point I
started to leak fluid again and it was
a lot. I was soaking femine pads
every 2-3 hours with amniotic fluid.
The baby continued to do well during
the non-stress test that I had 2 times
every day. At this point the fluid
stayed low, 1cm-1.5cms. The doctors
were amazed that I had not started
labor or had an infection yet. They
dedcided that if nothing happened
before 34 weeks, they would deliver me
then.
They scheduled a c-sect for 34w 2d,
and everything stayed the same until
34weeks exactly. I started having
contractions. I did not have any the
whole time until then. The
contraction were irregular but
continued all night long. My ob
decided that we would not wait until
my scheduled c-sect the next day, that
he would come back after his office
hours that night and do my c-section.
At this point I had been in the
hospital, on modified bedrest for 89
days. This was it, either we would
have a baby that would be able to
breath or not.
At 8:45pm, April 26th, 2007, Our baby
girl, Brooke Leighanna was born
crying. She could breath and breath
on her own. It was a miracle. Her
apgars were 8/8 and she only reguired
oxygen via a nasal cannula. She was
5lbs 7ozs and 16.8 inches long. She
was squished from not having much
fluid around her for almost 13
weeks.
She stayed in the special care nursery
for 12 days. She only has
minor "preemie" issues. She dose'nt
have the whole suck, swallow, breath
thing down yet, but she is perfect.
No major issues.
She is home now, She is on a little
bit of oxygen, but the doctor thinks
she will be off by the time she is
full term gestationally.
Miracles do happen. Stay positive and
do not give up hope no matter what the
doctors tell you. I will not lie, I
was in the hospital for 93 days total
and it was horrible at times, but in
the end it was so worth it.
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